A blog about the full spectrum of gaming - video games, board-games, pen and paper RPGs - I play them, I make them, I'll write about them.

11 June 2012

Playing Oblivion: Day 3 part 9 – Finishing Up some unfinished Business

This is part of an ongoing series. If you want to start at the beginning, go here.

It's early 2012 and I'm playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Why? Because I (finally) can. Join me on my path to glory and the stabilization of the status quo in almost-Tolkien-land.

Should my path carry me to Skingrad
again, I'll probably try again to talk to the count but for now I go
back on the road towards the capital. I meet a dark-elf woman on the
road, confused what she may be doing out here on her own, apparently
unarmed. There is a conversation-topic related to some quest from
back in Skingrad that she says she doesn't trust me enough to talk
about. I decide that this is a point in game where I might try to
practice/understand the conversation-minigame that indicates Martor
intimidate/suck up on people to get on their better side. I fail the
first few tries but gain an understanding on how it works, then I
bribe the woman to like me anyways. Not that the information she has
is of any value for me. Passing the hellgate I jog towards the
capital.

I jog through along the road, fighting
kobolds every once in a while, when I reach a crossing where an
Imperial legionaire is coming along on his horse. He unmounts and
draws his weapon and I nearly freeze as I fear that I have somehow
wronged him but he runs right past me and cuts down a wolf that had
been following me. Nice to have the law on your side, I guess and
both the legionnaire and I go on our seperate ways. I reach the
capital and go to Thoronir, trader of cheap wares who meets with his
supplier at night in shady backyards. I tell him about the book I
found in his suppliers basement while looking for garlic and he
pretends to be shocked that the stuff he got cheap in the middle of
the night is not legitimate merchandise but comes right from a
graverobber. How stupid is he or does he think Martor is. Well Martor
apparently IS that stupid as he agrees to go stop the graverobber and
forgive Thoronir.

Following the map-prompt, I go to the
city graveyard, which completely surrounds the palace in the center
of the city. Martor thinks, in a prompt, that he saw the guy and a
man he doesn't know start grave-robbing so I search around until I
find the entrance to a crypt and go in. Inside there is the grave
robber/supplier and a man in heavy armor. The grave robber tells
Martor that this is a trap and that he'll just fill a grave now
instead of emptying it (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). He and his
mercenary are quite a tough fight, as he is using stamina-draining
magic similar to what the pirate leader had. In the end, after a long
battle, Martor stands in a crypt above two slain foes. I pick up the
magic sword the graverobber had and look around. He had a key to the
crypt with him which I use to unlock it (when did he lock it?) and go
back to Thoronir the dishonest elf trader.

He tells me that I have to go back to
get proof for the city guard. What, more proof than his ledger I
already found in his basement? Apparently, the shovel is it (a dirty
shovel, total and utter proof that some specific guy did
grave-robbing – they must have quite the CSI in this city) and I
bring it back to him. At this point, the spoken words and the
subtitles tell two completely different things. The text says that
the sword is proof of graverobbery and the spoken words mention the
shovel. The text says I get the sword as a gift, while the spoken
words speak of a magic ring, which is what actually appears in my
inventory. I still have the sword, so what gives? Thoronir has
meanwhile decided to give all the stolen goods and all the money he
made off it to the temple and to also join the traders association.
That's quite a 180 he pulled there but I'm not going to question it.
I go to the trader who hired me to do her dirty work in the first
place to see if there is a reward.

She is really pleased with me and
surprised but not suspicious about Thoronirs change of character.
Anyways, as I try to use the pleasant mood to ask her about another
quest, about the crooked cop around here, she gets really angry and
basically throws me out of her store. That gratefulness didn't last
long, I guess. I go to the Imperial Chamber of Commerce to see if I
can use my new ability to play the social-minigame to buy a house in
the city. While I don't really need one, it would be nice to be able
to store stuff, which would have prevented the loss of a lot of
equipment when I was turning back from vampire to human. It works out
well but the place is more than I can afford and also, by all means,
a slum-shed. While both I in real life and Martor in-game have slept
in worse, it's another thing to spend all the money you have saved up
on that.

What's next on the agenda? Oh, yeah, I
was going to stop that cult from destroying the world by means of
Daedra-incursion. Don't worry, world, Martor is back on it again!

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MadZabGaming

I make games and this is my blog. I create pen and paper RPGs, tabletop-games and sometimes even board-games in my free time and I will talk about these here. Also, opinions and musings about games in general, video games I play and anything related to this. Also gaming-diaries of video-games. If you like this sort of thing, you're at the right spot. This is a blog about the full spectrum of gaming - boardgames, pen and paper RPG, tabletop-strategy and video games.

Oh yeah, I take no responsibility for stuff contained in pages this blog may link to and neither do I claim ownership of any copyrighted names of corporations, products or software I may mention in this blog. The texts and graphics are mine though. Just to get the legal issues out of the way.